A thousand kisses deep

Leonard always breaks my heart from the first time I heard Suzanne only to realize she was my Best Friend and I wanted him to sit on her sofa and have her make him tea like she does when I am feeling out of sorts and play scrabble or some other word game that she will win and I will win just because I have her company. So I was listening and looking sort of working through my head a poem about the word obtuse and was looking for a poem Cohen had read. He was reading part of a poem at the opening of one of Tori Amos' songs. I was struck by the beauty of it. "I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name, women give of themselves to him. If I am dumb behind your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I heard him climb the stairs and hear him clear his throat outside our door." It was so beautiful it stopped my breath for a few seconds. Then my phone rings with a text just happened to be what I needed to read. Perhaps the first day of snow won't be dark and gloomy and well winter. Yes, winter has started and as I am missing my garden today and my parents (at this time of the year my mother almost always smelled like sugar cookies) I found my brother yesterday who comforted me with the words, "You are the only other person in the world who would understand missing our parents." With the snow bring the holidays. I told myself I wasn't going to decorate this year and I already have the lights up, so much for intention.


Cohen wrote a hundred versions of the poem and ten songs. In the second version I love that he refers to himself as a melting snowman.

The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it’s done –
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it’s real,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,
I’m back on Boogie Street.
You lose your grip, and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece.
And maybe I had miles to drive,
And promises to keep:
You ditch it all to stay alive,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Confined to sex, we pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
I made it to the forward deck.
I blessed our remnant fleet –
And then consented to be wrecked,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,
I’m back on Boogie Street.
I guess they won’t exchange the gifts
That you were meant to keep.
And quiet is the thought of you,
The file on you complete,
Except what we forgot to do,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep.

The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat . . .




1. You came to me this morning
And you handled me like meat.
You´d have to live alone to know
How good that feels, how sweet.
My mirror twin, my next of kin,
I´d know you in my sleep.
And who but you would take me in
A thousand kisses deep?

2. I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat.
I´m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet,
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second-hand physique -
With all he is, and all he was
A thousand kisses deep.

3. All soaked in sex, and pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
We made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet -
And then consented to be wrecked
A thousand kisses deep.

4. I know you had to lie to me,
I know you had to cheat.
But the Means no longer guarantee
The Virtue in Deceit.
That truth is bent, that beauty spent,
That style is obsolete -
Ever since the Holy Spirit went
A thousand kisses deep.

5. (So what about this Inner Light
That´s boundless and unique?
I´m slouching through another night
A thousand kisses deep.)

6. I´m turning tricks; I´m getting fixed,
I´m back on Boogie Street.
I tried to quit the business -
Hey, I´m lazy and I´m weak.
But sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go
A thousand kisses deep.

7. (And fragrant is the thought of you,
The file on you complete -
Except what we forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep.)

8. The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it´s done -
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it´s real
A thousand kisses deep.

9. (I jammed with Diz and Dante -
I did not have their sweep -
But once or twice, they let me play
A thousand kisses deep.)

10. And I´m still working with the wine,
Still dancing cheek to cheek.
The band is playing "Auld Lang Syne" -
The heart will not retreat.
And maybe I had miles to drive,
And promises to keep -
You ditch it all to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep.

11. And now you are the Angel Death
And now the Paraclete;
And now you are the Savior's Breath
And now the Belsen heap.
No turning from the threat of love,
No transcendental leap -
As witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep.

you would think

You would think the carved Jack O Lantern faces would keep the squirrels out of the pumpkins but no they burrow through the back and turn the fall pumpkins into a condo. I have put out several pumpkins now and they are all squirrel condos and in a few days they will be gone when I throw out the rest of the garden. Richie's near me for his birthday and we had a lovely lunch, went and did a little shopping finding him some things I wouldn't dare pick out without him being with me. He came back and washed a few of the windows that you had to reach on the ladder and we are off to the movies. Because it's his birthday I will let him pick. I picked Anna and the King once a long time ago and have never heard the end of it and now he uses it as his excuse to pick for me.

I saw my kid last weekend because we had a family function, a funeral for some family members that passed together in an accident. Everyone was back at the house and although it was a sad event it was nice to see everyone to have them all close at the same time, as the kids get older its a rarer event. Even though Rich had spent the summer living at the house its nice to see him, spend time with him as an adult. We seldom run out of things to talk about, it's the comfortable conversation, nothing of his future plans, He seems happy and for me that's what's important. At his age I had a child and a family and he's braver, doing it all on his own, forging a life for himself.He loves the job and being on his own and I love it for him.

I mentioned to him that crazy Jeannie was back and we both laughed. "Mom does she still think Luxor is in Vegas?" Of course she does. If only there were more stringent laws about who can collect disability she wouldn't have time to write. Do you endlessly try to contact someone you claim not to like? claim being the operative word here.

Do you know that I love you?

This morning the little gray cat climbed in my lap
and while I rocked him in the gray light
I was marveling how nature comforts us
and when we must comfort her
I am in turn in the garden
pruning or pulling plants, fall's ritual dance
making room for next Spring's eager bloom
or comforting one of her creatures into twilight slumber

And for further evidence of nature's wonder
I would use for argument's sake your arms
those wondrous pieces of nature's design weren't just for
laborious garden tasks or painting but for harvesting my soul
and giving me a place to lumber like that silly
gray cat who will later be chasing bits of yarn
in the same kitten excitement with which I chase your heart
the tender part of you saved for moments of quiet
in the shade of a white cross
when no one can find you when you are living alone
but never alone

You are the silent robin who swoops from his haughty perch
to thrill me with the touch of a wing on my cheek
a touch of teeth brushing my ear
and it's all I can do but stand frozen in nature's awe
how she built the elusive creature I love
with that line from your neck to your shoulder
that artists have tried to capture over and over
in the eternal struggle to capture man's strength and his tender beauty
and as many times as I paint blue birds or tender azure flowers
I will never paint anything as beautiful
as your left thigh wrapped in denim

And as nature herself summons the clouds and pushes
us through another day in sturdy fall wind
I can close my eyes and feel your hand in the small of my back
leading me from a crowded room
to a quiet place where there is only me
and always only you
and were there two people who ever desired to be as alone
as much as you and I
who could leave the world behind knowing the wind will still blow
the flowers will push their way through the dirt
and no one should miss us because no one knows
oh no one knows how you comfort me so
fly down and dance and dance with me now
let's sway to and fro and twirl a little in fall's magesty

I wouldn't ask them to understand you see
there are cynics in libraries and never one in a garden
there are naysayers in board rooms
but I would believe you anything
There are women who would be contrary just for contrary's sake
but when you ask me the question
that you asked me today
that you've asked me enough the time tested question
"Do you know that I love you?"
I can hear the inflection
as I can feel the October winds blow the leaves from my heart
and as they blow away they even sound like a yes
yes yes yes yes yes

********************************************

I have been attempting to get the cats to wear a sombrero I found with best friend at a garage sale. They all freak out of course so I am introducing it to them because you see I want to make a Christmas card of them wearing a sombrero, at least one of them. I am thinking this is like bailing the ocean or asking feenie foodie to be at good at something but I am putting in the effort. The babies like to play with the little neck tassel and dirty just carries it around with him from room to room taking a nap with it. They are endless entertainment. The garden is just about wrapped up for the fall and I put a few pumpkins outside, one carved like a jack o lantern and the other in tact. The squirrels have been eating them at the jack o lantern to the core and the other has a big hole in the back so they can go in for pumpkin seeds for their daily ritual of burying things for the winter. I like to feed the outside animals it keeps them from getting too close and it just makes me happy so I don't mind sharing the garden with them.


In honor of the closing fall garden and big bruce



subtitled in Italian because some very sexy things are said in Italian, just saying.

"She'll let you in her mouth if the words you say are right."



Girls always love the boys who are tougher than the rest.

The Passion of Irish Men

There are many photos of Yeats, this is my favorite. He looks wise and yet a bit tired, all of man but yet human, the best part of man. He looks deep in thought and perhaps even a bit tired. It's harder to nail down the perfect Yeats poem, there's too many choices, too many thoughts that roll through your head like red wine. I found this one though and thought of Will rocking his new Lilly and since I havent found the words for my own Lilly poem offer this to that gentle reader:




And as any bickering session always turns with the one I love to the time he's spend for just him, pleading with him to push work aside in my own unique fashion, I do love Down in the Salley Garden. It took me awhile to find the right song version, knowing that my Irish father would have wanted a soft gentle voice to sing the song because he wrote of her snow white feet.



DOWN by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white
feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not
agree.
In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white
hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.


In 1923 Yeats won the nobel prize in literature and unlike most writers and poets finished his best work after being given the prize and the first Irishman to claim the coveted honor. He sang his song for an an entire nation of people and loved their legend and even loved the occult. He noted Shelley as an influence and I love his works as well, he had great taste. When Shelley wrote about a kiss it was as though no one else had ever heard of kissing before and wouldn't feel the same about it after.

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

PB Shelley

I digress. You only have to look to pop culture to know how many have read Yeats' work and who love him.



And when one things of ephemera you think of the disposable use of a theater ticket or a playbill from some musical in new york you've seen once but it became part of you. So he compares this throw away memory of life's time passing to love.

"Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sotrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning."
And then She:
"Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!"

Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
while slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."

The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
ell like faint meteors in the gloom and once
a rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
on the lone border of the lake once more;
turning he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
gathered in silence, dewey as her eyes, in bosom and hair

"Ah, do not mourn," he said,
"that we are tired, for other loves await us;
hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Bfore us lies eternity, our souls
are love, and continual farewell."

**********************************************


And my contribution?

Maybe it's the weather
perhaps the fall, the leaves falling in their deadening dance
someone wrote a dream on every one of those falling leaves
a dream of what they imagined their life to be
in a trip to the opera
to watch a woman dressed as an egyptian princess
sing in italian
everyone suddenly understands italian when its full of such pain
and in fall's opera
there is a young woman
so full of passion's promise
that her cheek turns red with blush
at a man's sweet smile and whispering italian phrase
and to conquer the girl with porcelain skin
he would tell her most anything
he will regale her with stories of white horses
and princes
and their love how it lasts forever

In a quiet moment leaning near a tree
she will ask him
"when is the last time you kissed a woman because if you didn't
you'd die?"
In that question his armor will fall to the ground
and he will be a tiny woodland creature
scurrying for ground cover

and if he is brave and aren't all men who murmur in italian brave?
if he is brave he will stand on the stage
and be naked
and say what he wants
and let the leaves fall where they will
passion is temporary after all and love is not
love is the tender moment when someone holds your hand
because the next moment isn't so easy
and he wouldn't want you to be alone

A man can live on little love
I have discovered this
but when he ia asked to live without passion
something of him dies
he stops believing in the white horses
he's sure they are all gray, and weary and dunked in bleach
their tails pulled into threads

He won't charge into the room with a sword
there will be nothing to fight for
his lawyer will write your lawyer a letter
and when someone asks him "what's wrong?"
he will smile that charming smile and tell you, "Nothing, perhaps I'm just tired is all."

Perhaps it is the weather
perhaps it's the smell of the leaves
maybe it's mozart's inspiration
or seeing one of Yeats' faeries in the garden
while you are pulling up the dead plants of fall
suddenly in the fall air and it fills his lungs
in the shadows all over the ground
suddenly love isn't enough and maybe it never was

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I think she had her own Superman:
"I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year."









Have you ever watched a man play Keno?


Have you ever watched a man play Keno?
You aren't going to find a rocket scientist
waiting for the lottery ball to fall
they are off guiding rockets
You aren't going to find a man of industry
or a great man of thought pushing the button
over and over again
hoping for a little jingle of music
and some coins to fall loose
Men of industry are in a meeting
playing golf
planning his next big move

I saw a man playing Keno
his face like a dead limb on a tree
falling to the side a little
waiting for a strong wind of something
to push him free
waiting for the jingle of coins

He was playing hoping to win it big
to take his wife to Kansas City, the land of
well nothing, it's Kansas City
Famous people lived there
Walter Cronkite, Hemingway,
the Great Jazz Saxophonist; Charlie Parker
but they all left and Hemingway told people
he was from Oak Park

He must really love this woman I thought to plan the big
trip to Kansas City, the land of whatever it was
the land of
but he shook his head slowly like a man married
to someone who was once charming and even interesting
and now was a robot of herself
angry with the world
her friends avoiding her calls
unless they need something
a ride to this place
or a few dollars for dinner
You see they don't really come around
they don't have to listen to what he listens to
night after night
and when a co-worker asks how she is
he just nods, just fine
knowing she's busy hating something hating and hating and hating
and his only respite? the little bouncing balls of Keno
the mindless game of lottery where he has no control
no power
no big meeting he's missing
just life spinning off another 20 years of nothing
glad his unborn children aren't watching this
life of his the dead limb of life
hang just a little closer to the ground
hoping the air conditioning works when he gets home
and maybe she's asleep on the sofa
dreaming of Kansas City



**********************************************************

Millay wrote of nothing ordinary. She was the first female poet that caught my attention back in high school, Ms. Kerns English class. Kerns was very quiet, wore her hair in long braids rolled up on the side of her head and she knew poetry. She was serious about poetry. In the season when everyone was reciting the Raven, she loved Millay and so do I. Millay was the first woman to ever receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. If you are looking for a good fall read Nancy Millford's; Savage Beauty charts her life in a mysterious fashion.

Floyd Dell wrote of her "a frivolous young woman, with a brand-new pair of dancing slippers and a mouth like a valentine." She wrote of love you see, not the ordinary love of some shack worker an his rabid wife but of the out of the ordinary love and broken hearts and high expectations.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.




What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.


******************************************************

This is a favorite

OH, THINK not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love's self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own.
Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you–think not but I would!–
And seek another as I sought you first.
But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.
So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.

********************************************************
and of course..the first poem of Millay's I heard in Mrs. Kern's English class:

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish—and men do—
I shall have only good to say of you.

The Fall of Man

"American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough."
— Pat Conroy (Beach Music)




Nothing Ordinary

I was riding in the woods today listening to the hush of leaves under the tires
the sun low in the sky throwing fall's shadows all over the ground making
the air feel dark and mysterious the earth spinning and strangling the last breath of summer's promise
wondering what part of the garden I'd pull from the ground when this journey
found me back at home
and as I turned the corner there in a glade of trees all green and brown
was a brilliant orange tree and I was compelled to stop and admire it
it was though it was from a dream, just that beautiful, nature screaming at me
and it was so brilliant it made me ache a little
you there with me as you always are, as you promise you always are
I could smell leaves burning somewhere as the mother of the earth itself satisfied all senses
if I had to put all you are in a metaphor it would be that tree
I could point to the leaves that make up the whole and know those parts of you I admire so
I gathered some leaves that had fallen as a burning flame and called one brilliant and another charming and yet another fun
And if I had to sift among my arm's fill of them, sifting through handsome and gallant and protective and wise, I would hold closest to me the fun of you
It is that fun that makes time stop, that makes me a child again in awe of nature, in the strength of man as often you are all I cannot be
It makes everything around me seem clearer and creates moments under the tree
when I can stop my life, stop the world from spinning and admire it and you
and then create this moment when I have the power to write about it
This is my song you see, a giving of thanks for all you share with me
for the way you love me and mostly for the way you let me love you
you, that just this morning I could pause and know you were looking for me
and for you to know what that means to me
You see, and I don't know that you do, you are the miracle set against the world so ordinary
In a world where we are taught that ordinary is good and mediocre, the standard
the brilliant orange tree set ablaze with fall
reminding us to cherish every moment because soon it changes into something else
Those moments when you are close are nothing ordinary if only because you are part of them and I hold them close even when you seem so far away
and the only constant
the only truth
the only thing that matters
is that I love you


***********************************************
I was listening to Bill Withers this morning riding in the woods. Recently on a local station here they played a week of rock from A to Z by song title. I listened while I worked, listened while I ran errands and wondered what the next song would be. I hadn't imagined how many song titles started with the word Angel. This amused me so. I developed a theory as I was listening all the way to Z, that men love so deeply. Every woman's name you could imagine had a song and a song title. There were Jackies and Lelas and even a few Carolines. This also amused me. I couldn't think of many song titles with a man's name written by a woman. My theory? That women love the idea of what men are supposed to be and men love women for what they are. Just a theory. I haven't written in awhile busy with some larger wholesale orders and a new art adventure.

Thanks for the notes asking how I am doing. I appreciate it. As for the stalkerama drama? I leave that to old ladies with nothing to do all day but patrol when their husband is perusing online porn. I have bigger fish to fry and the Feenie Foodies of the world know what they are and what they aren't they don't need me to remind them. As they spin and whine they only make themselves miserable. They own that misery, I do not.

If you are looking for a little Bill Withers, here ya go. I love this song.



***************************************
Here's Lenny Kravitz and his version and it's just as wonderful but a little faster



******************************************



And for Pat Conroy, well he's brilliant and insightful. I have used the above quote before in his reference and it always bears repeating. I admire men for their calm, cool spirit and the wisdom they offer when cooler heads prevail.


"Memory in these incomparable streets, in mosaics of pain and sweetness, was clear to me now, a unity at last. I remembered small and unimportant things from the past: the whispers of roommates during thunderstorms, the smell of brass polish on my fingertips, the first swim at Folly Beach in April, lightning over the Atlantic, shelling oysters at Bowen's Island during a rare Carolina snowstorm, pigeons strutting across the graveyard at St. Philip's, lawyers moving out of their offices to lunch on Broad Street, the darkness of reveille on cold winter mornings, regattas, the flash of bagpipers' tartans passing in review, blue herons on the marshes, the pressure of the chinstrap on my shako, brotherhood, shad roe at Henry's, camellias floating above water in a porcelain bowl, the scowl of Mark Santoro, and brotherhood again."
— Pat Conroy (The Lords of Discipline)

When I think of memories that inspire me I think of this passage from the Lords Of Discipline and hold the things to me that make me who I am. I hold the memory of seeing Van Gogh's night scape for the first time at the Art Institute, and Monet's water flowers covering the walls of that sacred place. I remember my first English teacher reading us the stories of the Greek Gods and the first time I read the grapes of wrath. I think about holding Richie when he was still a baby (and wondering how Will enjoys that now), I think of cool ohio summers on the porch sipping iced tea and the smell of cut grass always reminds me of mowing in the summer with my father and then going for a chocolate malted afterward. Seeing sand brings me back to moments at the lake house when Richie was younger and the endless times I've brushed sand off his clothes after he'd been playing on the beach all day. I can't go swimming without thinking of Suzy and I swimming at the lake and seeing the big white wooden fish off the pier and knowing we were close to home.

"The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave
anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the
genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language.
Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a
ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in "Lonesome Dove" and had
nightmares about slavery in "Beloved" and walked the streets of Dublin in
"Ulysses" and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my
mother killed by a baseball in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I've been in ten
thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers
in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous
English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and
women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me
when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English
language. "
— Pat Conroy

This has to be my favorite Conroy quote other than the quote from the Prince of Tides where he wishes two lives were apportioned to every man and woman and it was the secret life that sustained him now.

Because of John Irving I could feel Garp fly the way home with his kids in the back seat, and only because I read Atlas Shrugged did I understand that being selfish was actually the way to share of yourself. Yes, Ayn Rand changed my life. Read Anthem and you will know why she loved America and why I do. When I read Misery I was on a city bus on my way to class and had to stop and get off it was so terrifying. Later when I read the Tommy Knockers I was in awe of King's power and the stories he tells. I was pissed when nowhere in the bridges of Madison county did Waller mention that Yeats wrote that poetry and so much more. I remember sitting at the lake wondering how anyone could claim that kind of love and then be powerless to follow it. It took a wise man later to explain it to me to take the edge off that anger. Books make up who we are, what we value and what we imagine heaven will be. There is a moment when Hemingway was writing of Killmanjaro when he wrote of a man's pain, the raw truth of what he knew and how brave he was for putting it out in the world, his own frailties. If he were only remembered for this that would be enough. What books have moved you? Changed you? When we stop reading we are done dreaming.

In 44 Minutes

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
Omar Khayyam








It never takes me 44 minutes to write a poem
but sometimes I am writing it in my head for 44 days
it just takes that long to grow there to fill in the blank places

I won't change the world in 44 minutes and I suppose
it passes in the blink of an eye the same as a year does
when you aren't looking
when you are just living in the moment and it ticks away
the sands falling through time and at the end faster and faster

When I am looking for you 44 minutes seems torture
and if you can imagine someone twisting your arm behind your back
for 44 minutes
a bus hitting you and it taking 44 minutes to realize you wont survive
44 minutes for water to boil
44 minutes to hear you say
"Have I told you today I love you?"

I'm sure no one's ever written a sonata in 44 minutes
or built a highway
but if you string together that burst of time
doing what you want what you know is true and good
when you are feeding your soul
44 minutes can change a heart
it can open a window
fill your lungs with air
even cause you to smile when someone is being unkind
and if you trust love
you can fly
to perhaps to an ancient city
and walk by a river that created time
and stroll there

We are remembered not only by the work we do here
but how we love
The balance comprises the whole
In 44 minutes a man can decide he's done fighting
and just close his eyes and go under the water
and trust that there's a bigger plan for all of us
pieces of a cosmic puzzle of love and life and renewal

When I know I am only as valuable as the time I share
when I forget I'd rather be alone because being near you
is such joy
and "being with you is like being alone."
when I know you are close and my heart is racing
and not because it's shiny new but because it's time tested
something you can count on
something true
and always you

***********************************************************

A little Aaron to fill the summer

Because it's raining today (its been raining for days) and there is something very magical about a not so gentle summer rain. Like a flower drinking from the pouring rain, the same rain that could wash it away.





And because it's always a favorite of mine on a rainy day

Love Letters

I am weary with love's maladroit dance today
and could toss love aside easily for chocolate
or a new rose in the garden
or any movie with Daniel Craig

Restless summer days like this my father
would take us to the lake to go fishing
and listen to the radio on a blanket
sipping orange soda

I want to stand in the garden
and tear up love letters
and watch the earth worms eat the pages
the idea that those pen marks
could be worm shit
makes me giggle
because every time he makes me cry
I plan my exit

I'll write a cryptic note
leave it next to a bottle of red wine
pack a suit case full of blame
and go look for the blue wind boy
and the next time not take love so seriously

Keep your hand inside the ride at all times
avoid making toast while swimming
when you find a boy that could break your heart
keep a little piece hidden in your coat pocket
for the end of summer
and I will show you where to plant it















And Annie's best of all the best:

I used to be a lunatic from the gracious days
I used to feel woebegone and so restless nights
My aching heart would bleed for you to see

1-Oh, but now

I don't find myself bouncing home
Whistling buttonhole tunes to make me cry

No more I love you's
The language is leaving me
No more i love you's changes are shifting
Outside the words


No one ever speaks about the monsters

I used to have demons in my room at night
Desire, despair, desire
So many monsters
(rpt 1)

2-No more i love you's
The language is leaving me
No more i love you's
The language is leaving me in silence
No more i love you's
Changes are shifting outside the words

And people are being real crazy
And you know what mommy?
Everybody was being real crazy
And the monsters are crazy.
There are monsters outside
(rpt 2, 2,...)

Do be do be do do do oh
Outside the words

August's flower

August's Flower


I planted a pot of morning glories near the front window
I wanted to be able to sit there in late summer, listen to the summer bugs sing
and have their blue and white blooms crawl up the side of the house
on a trellis because a garden feels more like a garden with a trellis

I have been watching them grow those little seedlings
into the heart shaped green leaves spilling out of the pot
but the miracle in all this talk of the glories of the new day
is in the tendril not in the flower
Those tendrils curl out from under the plant and they wait and wait
they wait for a wind strong enough to blow their sticky fingers
onto the trellis so they have something to hold on to
somewhere to climb
something of strength
to compliment that tender twirl of living thing

Without the strength of the wooden earth ladder
this pot of leaves would spill out onto the ground
and nobody could see them from the street
and I couldn't see them from my favorite chair
in my favorite window where the kittens like to keep guard for squirrels
so the trellis is their spine, unattached but part of it
not alive but holding life allowing it to flourish

How do you tell a trellis that it is nothing but wood
if it were not for the bravery of that tiny tendril of curled sticky love?
How do you point to the blooms and tell him
"If it were not for that blossom you'd be kindle"
Sometimes strength bears a curious hubris
and in nature's child-like soothsayer ability
she points out the obvious that beauty will always inspire
that strength is only as good as the beauty that leans into it
crawls up its leg and rests on it's shoulder, unafraid
and ultimately unashamed


******************************************************








I was missing my friend Jay this morning and he introduced me to Nina. When she sings in french it will steal your heart. Today is a quiet summer day and the perfect time for a little Nina in the garden.

The Catfish Poem I love

Let's talk about Richard Brautigan. He is one of those writers I want to embrace but ultimately would like to strangle. I find one poem of his I love and the next I hate. The Catfish Friend poem I found years ago and made it a study of some altered books I made. I love the images it creates:

The Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

**************************************************

Some of Brautigan's poetry seems like a child's fairy tale and others as though it was never finished that it wasn't really a poem but more of a thought of a poem. He was the voice of San Francisco and the beat movement of the 70's and 80's. I suggest a little interest in his work and see what you can take away as something you will love.



The Wait

It seemed
like years
before
I picked
a bouquet
of kisses
off her mouth
and put them
into a dawn-colored vase
in
my
heart.

But
the wait
was worth it.

Because
I
was
in love.

Richard Brautigan

***********************************************************


***********************************************************

Yes, the Fish Music

A trout-colored wind blows
through my eyes, through my fingers,
and I remember how the trout
used to hide from the dinosaurs
when they came to drink at the river.
The trout hid in subways, castles,
and automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away.

Richard Brautigan

If you don't get it don't bother

His name is Harry I think. We haven't really decided. We thought on Leroy, Jr. and the kids thought Chevy sounded right. I'm working on it.

The Great Song Poets

When loves calls you by your name

You thought that it could never happen
to all the people that you became,
your body lost in legend, the beast so very tame.
But here, right here,
between the birthmark and the stain,
between the ocean and your open vein,
between the snowman and the rain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.
The women in your scrapbook
whom you still praise and blame,
you say they chained you to your fingernails
and you climb the halls of fame.
Oh but here, right here,
between the peanuts and the cage,
between the darkness and the stage,
between the hour and the age,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

Shouldering your loneliness
like a gun that you will not learn to aim,
you stumble into this movie house,
then you climb, you climb into the frame.
Yes, and here, right here
between the moonlight and the lane,
between the tunnel and the train,
between the victim and his stain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

I leave the lady meditating
on the very love which I, I do not wish to claim,
I journey down the hundred steps,
but the street is still the very same.
And here, right here,
between the dancer and his cane,
between the sailboat and the drain,
between the newsreel and your tiny pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

Where are you, Judy, where are you, Anne?
Where are the paths your heroes came?
Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away,
was I, was I only limping, was I really lame?
Oh here, come over here,
between the windmill and the grain,
between the sundial and the chain,
between the traitor and her pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

Leonard Cohen

Cohen wrote so many wonderful poems/songs. My favorite is Hallelujah



Dance me to the end of love is truly enchanting

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love



Suzanne takes you down to a place near the river. Gods I love that song. When I hearda this this morning I had to make some tea from China and eat a very ripe orange.

"In My Secret Life"

I saw you this morning.
You were moving so fast.
Can’t seem to loosen my grip
On the past.
And I miss you so much.
There’s no one in sight.
And we’re still making love
In My Secret Life.

I smile when I’m angry.
I cheat and I lie.
I do what I have to do
To get by.
But I know what is wrong,
And I know what is right.
And I’d die for the truth
In My Secret Life.

Hold on, hold on, my brother.
My sister, hold on tight.
I finally got my orders.
I’ll be marching through the morning,
Marching through the night,
Moving cross the borders
Of My Secret Life.

Looked through the paper.
Makes you want to cry.
Nobody cares if the people
Live or die.
And the dealer wants you thinking
That it’s either black or white.
Thank G-d it’s not that simple
In My Secret Life.

I bite my lip.
I buy what I’m told:
From the latest hit,
To the wisdom of old.
But I’m always alone.
And my heart is like ice.
And it’s crowded and cold
In My Secret Life.

Wisdom from 1888

I found this at a yard sale a few years ago and found it when looking for some old papers. It was published in 1888 by a company called Dr. Price's cream baking powder and is full of the most interesting little recipes.

Southern Corn Bread: sift one quart of white corn meal with two teaspoonfulls of baking powder. Add three tablespoons of melted lard, salt and three beaten eggs and a pink of milk, enough to make a thin batter. Beat all very hard for two minutes and bake rather quickly in a hot well greased pan in which a little dry meal has been sifted. Eat hot.

I love the suggestion to eat it hot.

Rice Muffins: Add two teacups full of cold boiled rice half a pint of milk and three eggs. Sift together one pinkt of flour, one and one half teaspoons of baking powder and one tablespoon of sugar and one teaspoon of salt and mix with the rice, beating into a smooth batter. Grease some muffin pans and fill each to 2/3rds and bake in a hot oven.

I would think a hot oven would be 350 and bake it until it looks done. I haven't tried this yet but the next time I make rice I may just do that.

Vanilla Snow Eggs: beat stiff the whites of six eggs; have ready on the fire a pint of ilk sweetneed and flavored with vanilla; as soon as it boils drop the beaten eggs into it by tablespoons and as soon as they become set dip them out with a tin; slice and arrange them according to fancy upon a broad dish; allow the milk in the saucepan to cool a little, and then stir in the yolks of the egg very gradually. When thick, pour around the snowed eggs and serve cold.

and finally sustenance for the sick...yes it has it's own chapter

Toast water: Brown nicely but do not burn the slices of bread and pour them into boiling water and cover. Let them steep until cold keeping the bowl or dish containing the cost closely covered. Strain off the water and sweet to taste putting a piece of ice into it as drank.

I couild not ever dream of drinking this as wet break freaks me out.

The world keeps turning

It was a little more than a year ago when I heard the news that would open up my little piece of the world and swallow me. It didn't. It didn't because I wasn't done doing what I was supposed to do I suppose. If you know what that is you could drop me a note I'd like that. I was looking for Bukowski poetry last night to post here to share with you and I found this, it bears repeating:


The Laughing Heart
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Charles Bukowski

You see even when you are bogged down in sadness or despair or even worry this is the only go around so there is no choice other than to look forward and hope by all means of hope that Emily was right and there is a bird and those feathers will carry the light.



Bukowski loved Ezra Pound. I will write more on Ezra later but I found this and it gave me such comfort that I put it on a note where I work and to this day I can find comfort in it.

As cool as the pale wet leaves
of lily-of-the-valley
She laid beside me in the dawn

Ezra Pound

And this I think the imagery is as beautiful as the song. If you want a day of comfort spend the entire day listening to a little Tommy.



and my contribution to all this?

When you have everything you want
God takes this as a sign you need a hurricane
and he moves his finger in a little circle
right near your head and the rain will fall and fall
Don't be shocked when nobody notices
it's not their storm and they have their own dream to chase
All you can do is hold on to what you know
and look to the sky when you are thirsty
and know when it's time to lay your head down
and wait for the day to pass
as they tend to do
Nobody has to remind the sun to come up in ribbons
even when summer is ending when the bugs
sing so loud you think they drown out any possibility
of reasoning
Make your deal with God now
tell him you will be more understanding of the world
more tolerable of fools
you will move more carefully
and perhaps he will be teaching a girl's school in the Sudan
or he will be taking a little nap and just when he's missing your song
he will hear your prayer he will hear the screams
and offer a little solace at the end of the day
on the car ride home
and that will be enough.


Thanks for spending this time with me. I have started a new project and I am excited to share pieces of that as well.

Carrie.

On Having A Best Friend

So one day awhile back I was watching Oprah. She had on a woman who was complaining that her Best Friend slept with her husband. This is the point where Oprah leans in and says quiet seriously, "Um, she wasn't your best friend." No shit. Best Friends don't do these sort of things. I was reading a blog recently where someone was saying truly strange things about her friend and I kept thinking, friends don't treat friends like this, they just don't. How do I know this? I have a Best Friend. I've had a Best Friend for a long time. Know what Best Friends Never do?

They never fuck your man. It doesn't even occur to them and if you love your Best Friend for a long time you know the other's weakness and how a man would fill that void and therefore you can't be attracted to him. Just how it works.

Best Friends never tell anyone where you were if you don't want the world to know where you are. There is no excuse for telling, not even if someone is worried. When you want to be away from the world, you tell your Best Friend and they field the nonsense but they don't tell, they just can't so don't ask.

Best Friends never put you down to others unless of course the put down is so blatant it's comical and everyone already knows about it. I can tell people my Best Friend is picky because if you've ever ordered in a restaurant with her you know. She has ordered something on the menu that will have to be set up in a fashion they've never encountered and you know what? She just likes it that way. She tells the world I've had 14 emotions today. That's a good day.

Best Friends don't lie to you. They never ever lie. If they start bullshitting you what separates them from men? Nothing. Best Friends tell you when the dress is stupid, and not working for your hips or ass. They mention that lipstick gives them a tumor, they laugh and point at you when you wear lime green crocks. (Don't ask me how I know this stuff for certain.) Best Friends knock on the door when you've been away from the world too long. Best Friends are always invited to your house, it's just a given. Best Friends don't lie.

Best Friends know your weaknesses and don't play on them. They know you're an emotional girl, or perhaps not emotional enough. They know you won't put the cap back on the bottle and do it when you aren't looking just so they can sleep and they don't nag at you to do it. They can finish your sentences but delight in hearing them. They know you for the worst and best of what you are and who you are and love love love you anyway.

If you want a Best Friend, be one. It's just that simple. Love someone without boundary, love them at the bookstore and love them late at night when they call because they had a strange nightmare about chickens. You can sleep when you die.

Why do I love MY Best Friend?

This is easy.

She's always on my side. If someone calls her bitching about me her first response, "what did you do to her?" hahaha

We are two totally different people, different views on most things but I can see her point of view and respect it and she always respects mine even when she's laughing and pointing.

She's the rational to my not so rational side. If I overly excited about something she will put her hand on my shoulder and say "girlfriend this has no power." She's usually right about this.

She says things that make me laugh days after she says them. Things like "If you weren't dressed like a bumble bee and I wasn't dressed like a gypsy hooker, we'd be eating dinner at Trump Tower tonight." Ha, we ate BBQ at a hole. Figures.

She shares her family with me. Because of her love and her generous spirit I have another sister and a brother and nieces and nephews I love as much as I love my own children. I can have a separate relationship with each of them and she gave me a whole another family to love. Love multiplies when you share it, she's proof.

On a road trip, she always drives. I hate to drive. I am in control of the temperature, the radio, what we eat, and what I read to her. The rest is hers and I am glad it is.

I will never have to do anything in my life alone ever again. Imagine that. We are born alone, we spend time alone, we die alone. Not when you have the Best Friend I do, I don't ever have to do anything alone again. When you have a Best Friend you never have to take someone you can barely tolerate to a family wedding. They will expect your Best Friend because she's the person you want to be with, all the time.

My Best Friend can turn an ordinary afternoon up by Northwestern into an adventure. We stop at the Jewel, make a lunch, get a few really stupid magazines and one really smart one. We take the quilt from the trunk and sit in the grass ans paint each other's toe nails and read magazines and eat melon balls and laugh. Those days are the best days of my life.

When you have a Best Friend life is lighter, easier and so full of joy. Any burden is half and any happiness doubled. I know. I have one.

He will always be the first love of my life

The first time I read Bukowski I was with my Best Friend. Actually I was at her little apartment up on Barry Street and I pulled the orange copy of Love is A Mad Dog from Hell from the bookcase and I was done, smitten and fully in love with each line. I loved even some more than others. When he wrote sad you could taste sad like humidity and when he wrote content you just wanted to take a nap, content with the whole world.

Yes Yes

when God created love he didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time

He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.

-Charles Bukowski






and the gods wait to delight in you. Gosh, oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh. What kinder thing could you say to someone? This wasn't just a drunk. He wasn't just a mad who hid behind a face he thought was ugly, even hideous. He was pure poetry, hate and pain and love and joy the pendulum swings and you die in each line.



Consummation Of Grief

I even hear the mountains
the way they laugh
up and down their blue sides
and down in the water
the fish cry
and the water
is their tears.
I listen to the water
on nights I drink away
and the sadness becomes so great
I hear it in my clock
it becomes knobs upon my dresser
it becomes paper on the floor
it becomes a shoehorn
a laundry ticket
it becomes
cigarette smoke
climbing a chapel of dark vines. . .
it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life
what counts
is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses down the avenues of the dead.

Charles Bukowski




The images of Bukowski are beautiful. If you read Ham on Rye you will read that he didn't care what clothes he wore, all he cared about was the poems and the women and the beer, the escape of the reality of life and living for this moment, right here.

For Jane: With All the Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough:

I pick up the skirt,
I pick up the sparkling beads
in black,
this thing that moved once
around flesh,
and I call God a liar,
I say anything that moved
like that
or knew
my name
could never die
in the common verity of dying,
and I pick
up her lovely
dress,
all her loveliness gone,
and I speak to all the gods,
Jewish gods, Christ-gods,
chips of blinking things,
idols, pills, bread,
fathoms, risks,
knowledgeable surrender,
rats in the gravy of two gone quite mad
without a chance,
hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,
I lean upon this,
I lean on all of this
and I know
her dress upon my arm
but
they will not
give her back to me.

Charles Bukowski



If you are going to try go all the way! How many times do we have to hear this in our lifetime before it's our mantra? How many times? Anything he endured was this gift, the lover of life. If you are going to try go all the way there is no other feeling like this and you will be alone with the gods. I've read it a thousand times and when I read it again it will make me cry. He believed it and we wait around to hear it to inspire us even now, even now that he's dead, buried in the ground and the worms are eating his bones.



The rich are not good to the rich, the poor are not good to the poor. We are afraid. More haters than lovers and people are not good to each other. Perhaps if they were our deaths would not be so sad. I love that he turns it in his head to figure a way for us to be kinder, easier to make life more about watching out for one another even in a poem.



It reminds me of a Joseph Conrad poem about love and war and the way men who wage work work it out in their head.

I think I'll add more soon. I've had enough of his sadness tonight and I have to sleep soon. You can find him on YouTube, all over the net, in a bookstore, a library, and somewhere near your 3rd rib.

New Garden Photo

I made the wreath from some old silk flowers I found on sale and the twigs that fall down from the trees outside and a little bit of wire. The peppers are insane now, 9 different kinds, all fun shapes and colors, thinking about gathering a bunch up for a painting for the kitchen, some inspiration. The herbs have taken over especially the cat nip, next year i'd grown much less of it. I find such joy in the garden, I can't begin to tell you.